What is Worship?

Life

In our culture, the concept "worship" can mean a host of different things. Some think of worship as a genre of music or what happens when we sing worship songs. Others think of various rituals, experiences, or events. Still others think of good spiritual disciplines like prayer, Bible reading, discipleship classes, singing praises to God, going on mission...these are all good things. But true worship involves so much more.

Worship is not just meant to be a part of our lives—worship is our life. The true worship that God desires requires us to offer Him our entire lives (Romans 12:1) in accordance with his word that leads to his glory (1 Corinthians 10:31).

Belief

However, it's impossible to glorify and worship God with our life unless you have been saved by grace through faith. On our own, we are dead in our sins and tresspasses, unable to worship God, but God saves us by grace through faith in Christ (Ephesians 2:1-10) giving us new life in his Holy Spirit that enables us to worship him. Worship begins and ends with belief in the Gospel, the good news that Jesus Christ died to save sinners.

That is the reason we encourage our church to consider our beliefs in the context of worship, from our membership class to our regular meetings. We want a healthy, robust theology of our God to drive us to worship him as he is due. Click here to learn more about what our church's beliefs.

Corporate Worship

Though we can and should be intentional to worship and glorify God as individuals (as in the list of spiritual disciplines mentioned above), the most central and important expression of our faith as a church happens every week when we gather. After all, God has chosen the local gatherings of his church to display his glory among the nations (Ephesians 3:10). God has commanded us not to neglect our regular gathering (Hebrews 10:24) so that our faith will be continually strengthened through belief in and proclamation of the gospel. Every element of our corporate worship—singing, praying, reading Scripture, practicing baptism and the Lord's supper—is intentionally arranged around the preaching of God's Word, the proclamation of his gospel. Therefore, we spend significant time, resources, and energy praying and planning out these aspects of our church each and every week. Click here to learn more about our weekly Worship Gathering.